Global Outlook

A common intellectual parlour game is to rank American presidents in order of greatness. Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt have long reigned supreme in the top four slots in C-SPAN’s survey of presidential historians. Switching angles and timeframe, although few question the US decision to exit Afghanistan, few defend how it was done. The calamitous domestic political consequences will be matched by lasting damage to the US’s global reputation and interests. This prompts the question: what were the single worst blunders by recent presidents?

In May 2021, the United Nations Security Council met for the first time to discuss the role of emerging technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), in peace and security. In the following month, the Security Council met to discuss how to keep peace in cyberspace, also for the first time, ushering emerging technologies to the highest level of diplomatic efforts at the United Nations (UN).

On September 15, the leaders of the US, the UK, and Australia convened in Washington, where they agreed to form a new security pact called AUKUS. Considering that the three countries have already been allies for quite some time, it’s striking that they would establish yet another partnership for sharing military technology. That represents an evolution of their alliance.

In their advance towards Kabul, the Taliban were anticipating their military victory through WhatsApp's voice notes, tweets, and Facebook posts. The Taliban insurgency crafted transmedia storytelling on how Afghan army soldiers were surrendering without much fighting. On the eve of the seizure of Kabul, images shot by mobile phones and drones were transmitted to the world, showing scenes of the Taliban's march toward victory.

What would the people of Northeast Asia want in the field of peace and security ‘if only’ things were different? According to a Carnegie survey, the majority of people in South Korea believe that a unified Korea should continue to have an alliance with the United States after unification. A majority also feel that a unified Korea should have an alliance with China. A great majority hope that unification can be brought about by a peaceful compromise.

In June 2021, the Pacific Climate Change Migration and Human Security (PCCMHS) programme hosted the regional civil society consultation on climate related mobility. The online consultations were organized by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and provided an opportunity for civil society representatives from around the Pacific to review the human security implications of climate change related migration, displacement and planned relocation, share experiences about how climate related mobility is impacting communities and talk towards the development of a regional based solution.